07. Where Are the Women?: The Representation of Gendered Wartime Violence at Abu Ghraib in U.S. Newspapers

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In April of 2004, newspapers in the United States began to print stories unveiling the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib, a prison in Iraq appropriated for use by the U.S. military. This study examines how a number of newspapers portrayed gender in relation to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and considers what these depictions may suggest about the public acceptance of wartime violence as it links to gender. Literature indicates that gender-based violence during conflict is primarily perpetrated against women, yet content analysis of articles related to Abu Ghraib in the top three national newspapers from 2004-2020 reveals few articles that mention the female prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Instead, the news stories created a narrative in the U.S. that revolved almost exclusively around the male detainees and the U.S. military personnel. Conversely, female Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, despite also experiencing verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, were largely left out of this narrative. Viewed through a feminist lens, findings suggest that when the news of Abu Ghraib had to be released to the American public, the emphasis was placed almost exclusively on the abuses against male Iraqi prisoners, which might evoke less lasting outrage than the abuses against female Iraqi prisoners would have done. Future research is needed to uncover the reasons for the absence of female Iraqi prisoners in the narrative, and to further investigate the media depiction of the female experience during warfare, in general.